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More Cliff Notes
Jan. 10th, 2005 08:13 amIt snowed this week, and snowed some more. And more. All in all, I think we got somewhere between a foot and a half, and two feet of snow, on top of the 2-3 feet we already had. I posted the following a few days ago on the Sequential Tart message board:
In the last two days, on top of the 3 feet of snow we already had, we've gotten a foot and a half of new snow. My driveway is half a mile long ... it's really more of a private road than a driveway ... and it has several 270-degree switchbacks plus a hill.
We have an itty-bitty Suzuki with about six inches of ground clearance.
Yesterday evening, with about half a foot of new snow, we got stuck on the hill and spent 45 minutes shoveling ourselves out. Today, we came home in the afternoon -- our respective bosses let us go home early, because we live way out on the highway and conditions were awful: blizzard snowfall plus whipping wind leading to whiteout conditions. We turned off the highway onto our road (not the driveway, just the road, which is also private and not DOT-maintained) and ... FLOOF. You couldn't even see where our tire tracks from *five hours earlier* had been. Snow was cascading over the windshield of the poor Suzuki as I tried desperately to keep it going fast enough to plow through the snow by sheer momentum. We ground ingloriously to a halt in the middle of the road, spun out and dug in, as stuck as we had been last night.
Sigh.
There are only two other people who live on our road, both of whom have 4-wheel-drive trucks (because they've lived out here much longer than we have) and neither of whom appeared to be home. We slogged up the half-mile driveway to get snow shovels, and then back down to the car, and as winter darkness fell around us (naturally, there are no streetlights out here either) we thoroughly shoveled about 100 feet of road up to the first 10 feet of our driveway. Put chains on the car, gently unstuck it and drove it onto the driveway, so at least it wasn't blocking the road. There it sits, and there it will sit until we can get our driveway plowed, because there is not the slightest chance that it'll make it up the driveway now.
Luckily the guy who plows our driveway was able to come out that very night, although it then snowed another six inches so the driveway is kind of sloppy now. We also found that with chains, the car can go through nearly anything (within reason).
And then the temperature took a nosedive. It's now -25 and expected to be -40 tonight.
In Alaska, the weather is not just a conversation filler that people use when there's nothing else to talk about. It's one of the #1 topics of conversation!
In the last two days, on top of the 3 feet of snow we already had, we've gotten a foot and a half of new snow. My driveway is half a mile long ... it's really more of a private road than a driveway ... and it has several 270-degree switchbacks plus a hill.
We have an itty-bitty Suzuki with about six inches of ground clearance.
Yesterday evening, with about half a foot of new snow, we got stuck on the hill and spent 45 minutes shoveling ourselves out. Today, we came home in the afternoon -- our respective bosses let us go home early, because we live way out on the highway and conditions were awful: blizzard snowfall plus whipping wind leading to whiteout conditions. We turned off the highway onto our road (not the driveway, just the road, which is also private and not DOT-maintained) and ... FLOOF. You couldn't even see where our tire tracks from *five hours earlier* had been. Snow was cascading over the windshield of the poor Suzuki as I tried desperately to keep it going fast enough to plow through the snow by sheer momentum. We ground ingloriously to a halt in the middle of the road, spun out and dug in, as stuck as we had been last night.
Sigh.
There are only two other people who live on our road, both of whom have 4-wheel-drive trucks (because they've lived out here much longer than we have) and neither of whom appeared to be home. We slogged up the half-mile driveway to get snow shovels, and then back down to the car, and as winter darkness fell around us (naturally, there are no streetlights out here either) we thoroughly shoveled about 100 feet of road up to the first 10 feet of our driveway. Put chains on the car, gently unstuck it and drove it onto the driveway, so at least it wasn't blocking the road. There it sits, and there it will sit until we can get our driveway plowed, because there is not the slightest chance that it'll make it up the driveway now.
Luckily the guy who plows our driveway was able to come out that very night, although it then snowed another six inches so the driveway is kind of sloppy now. We also found that with chains, the car can go through nearly anything (within reason).
And then the temperature took a nosedive. It's now -25 and expected to be -40 tonight.
In Alaska, the weather is not just a conversation filler that people use when there's nothing else to talk about. It's one of the #1 topics of conversation!